Ed Ranks Seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer

7. Season Six

Yes, Season 6.

The show clearly should have ended with Season Five. I'm not saying that bringing Buffy back to life and jumping networks to UPN was always going to bring failure - but it did in this case. After facing the forces of hell, Buffy is now barely able to beat a Trio of stupid nerds? Lame. The only watchable episode is the musical one.

• S6 High Point: Once More With Feeling - The aforementioned musical.
  
• S6 Low Point: Pretty much all the rest, but let's just say Seeing Red - I never even really liked Tara, but I still didn't want to see her get shot by an angry sex robot-building douche. 
  

6. Season Seven

As noted before, the show should have ended already. At least the concept of the First Evil coming back as the primary antagonist for the series has potential. Did the potential pay off? No.

• S7 High Point: Conversations with Dead People - I suppose, if I have to pick something.
• S7 Low Point: No specific episode, but just the general premise of watching all the Buffy and Angel story arcs and casting be altered mid-season so that Joss Whedon could awkwardly stick in Firefly cast members after it got cancelled.

5. Season Five

Wheeeeee!

Glory was lame and Dawn magically appearing without explanation was kind of crazy, right? The Gift was a great series finale. Let's all pretend that this show was only on the WB and that the UPN episodes never existed.

• S5 High Point: The Gift - as mentioned. Buffy dies. Again. But not really. Again.
• S5 Low Point: Listening to Fear - a Season One-style monster mixed in with that Season Four para-military Riley nonsense, with the backdrop of brain surgery. Although, let's not forget that terrible Dracula episode either.

4. Season Four

Nightmare fuel

When a high school TV show moves to college, there is always something lost. You can use Saved by the Bell or any other TV show that does this as an example. Buffy definitely lost something by graduating - and despite the overall "meh" of Maggie Walsh and her initiative, there are still a few quality episodes and story arcs here. Remember Hush?

• S4 High Point: Hush - An episode with no dialogue. Pretty groundbreaking and those monsters gliding along were scary as hell.
• S4 Low Point: Where the Wild Things Are - The ghosts of children abused by a Christian fundamentalist years ago use ghost magic to make Buffy and Riley have sex, and Tony Head's illogical transformation from nerdy uptight librarian to "cool dude who just likes to jam on his guitar" is completed, probably due to Tony Head begging producers every single episode to work in a way he could totes show off his singing skills.

3. Season One

This short season (it was a mid-season replacement series) showed great potential for the series. While it was certainly a "monster of the week" kind of deal, the set-ups and story arcs that Buffy would become famous for were all set in stone here. But if every episode had been like I, Robot... You, Jane, then the show would have deserved to be cancelled.

• S1 High Point: Prophesy Girl - She dies! But not really.
• S1 Low Point: I, Robot...You, Jane - A demon is released into the internet. This is what The Matrix would look like if it was a SyFy channel movie with no budget.

2. Season Three 

Hey look, it's Faith!

Some people think this one is the best. In their defense, the season did finish really strong with its two-part finale that blows up Sunnydale High School and also gave us a couple episodes which were just about Alyson Hannigan being slutty in tight leather. Although, its a bit odd that the thing a lot of people loved most about a show about women's empowerment was a girl in tight leather. But the people who think Season Three is the best forget just how slow and boring the season started.

• S3 High Point: The Wish - Cordelia wishes Buffy never came to Summerdale and we get to see an alternate universe with slutty Willow and the Master still alive. This is Buffy's Mirror, Mirror.
• S3 Low Point: Dead Man's Party - After Anne bore us all to death with Buffy running away from home for summer vacation after killing her boyfriend, we should have been psyched for her return to Sunnydale. Instead we got this terrible episode about a Nigerian mask that raises zombies or something. Like I said, Season Three started super bad. It's not til they introduce Faith that things get remotely interesting.

1. Season Two 

Captivating love story. Kind of.

There was no sophomore curse for Buffy, as Season Two is its best season. This is the season that gives us Spike and Drusilla (all the episodes in their story arc are awesome, and this was an overall story arc-heavy season), and Angel turning into evil Angelus (which Season One was just setting up the whole time anyway). Did it have a couple of bad episodes? Admittedly, yes. Ted, and so on. Still, some of the episodes from Season Two that people hate violently aren't really that bad. Is Inca Mummy Girl a piece of high art? No, but it is a "Xander trying to get some" episode, and those are always kind of fun.

• S2 High Point: The Becoming, Part 2 - Buffy stabs her evil ex-boyfriend with a sword and send him in a portal to hell. Brutal.
• S2 Low Point: Probably Ted. Sorry, John Ritter as a robot designed to act like a dad on a 1950s sitcom is just not going to fly with me.